The ice skating sisters, sophomore Julia and junior Maria Vazquez glided to success in the 2015 Eastern Synchronized Skating Sectional Championships. Their team, The CNY Blizzards, finished with a silver medal, second place out of 49 teams.

Synchronized Ice Skating is a sport where anywhere from eight to 20 girls take the ice at a time. They do a routine all together in sync and they are judged as a group on things like how they perform together as a team, their speed, their technique, and more. The performance includes whole group moves, and then the group will often split up into pairs or smaller groups to perform, still in sync, their well thought out and practiced program.

Julia, Maria and 14 other girls from Central New York make up the The CNY Blizzards. This three day Ice Skating tournament took place in Lake Placid, NY. They competed in the Olympic Arena from Jan. 22 to the 24. The 49 teams from all over the East Coast came to compete, from Maine to Virginia. “I was really proud of my team,” says Maria. Both skaters were pleased with the outcome of the challenging skating tournament.

The girls skating career started when they were little. “Maria and I have been skating for nine years,” says Julia. Maria and Julia were inspired when they saw their friends skating and decided to try it. Because they enjoyed it so much, they decided to dedicate their time to skating. Julia and Maria practice individually about three to four days a week, along with a team practice on Saturdays. “I like it because all my friends do it and it’s just a great time.” says Maria. The girls like to have fun with each other, as they get along on and off the ice. “My sister and I aren’t competitive with each other,” says Julia,

Both the girls have different goals when it comes to skating in the future. Maria hopes to complete all of her skating requirements before high school. These requirements she strives to acquire are similar to how karate students earn their belts. “I’m hoping to continue competitive skating, but it depends where I decide to go for college.” says Maria. On the other hand, Julia hopes to achieve the Gold medal in moves in the field of dance. “Getting a gold medal means passing all the tests or dances that are given,” says Julia. In the future Julia wants to teach young kids how to skate like Maria does now, and continue to skate for fun.